04/04/2014 10:00
Underwater search begins for MH370
Towed pinger locators will begin to search the southern Indian Ocean for signs of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the BBC reported, citing Australian officials.
Two ships with pinger locator capabilities will search a 240km (150 mile) track under water, in the hopes of recovering the plane's black box.
Up to 14 planes and nine ships will also search for the plane on Friday.
The Malaysia Airlines plane disappeared on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying 239 people.
It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean, although no confirmed debris has been found from the plane. The search is being coordinated from Australia.
Angus Houston, head of the Joint Agencies Coordination Centre (JACC) leading the search, said that two ships had "commenced the sub-surface search for emissions from [the] black box pinger."
Australia naval vessel Ocean Shield was using a towed pinger locator from the US Navy, while HMS Echo, which had similar capabilities, was also searching.
"The two ships will search a single 240km track converging on each other," Air Chief Marshal Houston, who is retired, said.
The battery-powered pingers on the plane's black box stop transmitting about 30 days after a crash, giving the searchers now perhaps only a few days.
ACM Houston said that the area had been picked on the basis of analysis of the satellite data.
It was based on work regarding "how the aircraft might have performed and how it might have been flown", to choose the "area of highest probability as to where it might have entered the water."
He pointed out that this data was continuing to be refined, but the current search was based on the "best data that is available."
Given the progress in data evaluation and calculation, "there is some hope we will find the aircraft in the area we are searching", he added.